Hi All,
I have a Win 94 .32 spl. It slugs out at .322. I also have some 8mm .324 lead 230gr round nose gc bullets. They will be single shot only. Can I shoot these safely at 12 to 1400 fps. Some older Lyman books I have show a 193 load in a .32spl but nothing heavier. If anyone has experience with extra heavy bullets like this I would love your input. Thanks

Wascally Wabbit

Hi All,
I have a Win 94 .32 spl. It slugs out at .322. I also have some 8mm .324 lead 230gr round nose gc bullets. They will be single shot only. Can I shoot these safely at 12 to 1400 fps. Some older Lyman books I have show a 193 load in a .32spl but nothing heavier. If anyone has experience with extra heavy bullets like this I would love your input. Thanks

Wascally Wabbit
I have an old Win Mod.64 in 32 Sp and I think it is 1-12 twist if yours is the same then it probably isn't fast enough twist to stabilize much over the factory 170s. I never loaded for my .32....in fact its the only gun I have owned that I never got dies for.

RW -

The barrel in a 30-30 generally has a 1:12 twist, and stabilizes 170gr round noses quite well at 30-30 velocities. By the time one gets to 200gr one has to be quite picky about the bullet formfactor in terms of (the rate of twist) being able to stabilize it/them. At 30-30 velocities and 1:12 many/most of the VLD type bullets simply won't stabilize. The barrel in the 32ws (at least ours: 24" 1:16 twist), again at 3030 velocities, or worse, CAS lead velocities, is just barely stabilizing the std 170gr rnfp. [if they're still around, take a look at our 32ws targets from RDPM2 - the holes are clearly not round (and this was with optimum loads and good bullets)]. The suspicion is that with the 200's from a 1:16 barrel, you're going to end up with a large collection of keyholes (if the bullet even prints on the target). Wish we had better news... now if you could find a 125-140gr 8mm bullet, then that might be a different story.

do shoot straight,
greg
www.gmdr.com

ps. if you need 32ws low velocity data, we have a goodly collection on our website [url above, look under levergun data/studies]

Greg,
Thanks for all the info, you saved me from wasting a bunch of powder and bullets. I was really trying to turn a 32spl into a 38-55. This .32 is my friends rifle and I was trying to duplicate my 38-55 loads or come close, I see now it just aint possible, at least with any thing accurate. Your site is also very informative, thanks for all the work you put into that, I have it bookmarked and will be using it alot. Thanks again for the help.

Wascally Wabbit